Owen Guinn Smith (May 2, 1920 – January 20, 2004) was an American athlete, the 1948 Olympic champion in the pole vault.Born in McKinney, Texas, Smith moved to California when he was a kid. He was originally a high jumper, but UC Berkeley, the university he wanted to attend, already had a strong high jumping team, so he took up pole vaulting. He won the NCAA championships in 1941, the year before he graduated as a history major.